York Music Psychology Group

The York Music Psychology Group (YMPG) aims to explain and understand musical behaviour and experience, including the production, processing, and reception of music. In addition to creating this knowledge, we also apply it to music practice and the development of music technology.

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The SysMus '16 Conference report, written by YMPG member, Diana Kayser, has just been published.

'Each year students from all over the world come together to share and discuss their knowledge on varying topics from the field of systematic musicology at the SysMus Conference.

The 9th edition of this conference series, organised by students for students, took place in the idyllic town of Jyväskylä in Finland, and therefore for the first time in SysMus-history in one of the Nordic Countries. The 2016 conference was organised by student chairs Joshua Bamford and Susan Johnson with tremendous support from Birgitta Burger as supervising chair.

With its international community and critically acclaimed researchers, SysMus 2016 proved to be a fruitful and exciting gathering.'

The second of our Colloquium presenters tomorrow is Liam Maloney, current PhD candidate at the University Of York. This is what he will be discussing, in his own words:

Functions of Music: An ESM Study"In 1964 Alan Merriam first suggested a separation between the use and function of music. This study attempts to define and articulate Merriam's concept of the functions of music from two primary perspectives. Firstly, a large scale meta-analysis of previous studies and theory locates the potential functions of music already extant in the field. From this qualitative meta-analysis 45 functions of music were identified. Secondly, the concept of function was explored through a 7-day experience sampling methodology study. The study gathered 575 instances of music listening from 76 participants. Through qualitative analysis of the data 54 total functions were identified (partially due to a new conceptualisation and sub-grouping, and partially due to 4 additional functions not discussed within the literature).This presentation discusses the background and results of the study. It also details the design, implementation, process and challenges of performing an experience sampling methodology study."

For the first time YMPG will have a double billed Colloquium this week. The first speaker will be Lisa Thorpe, a PhD candidate from the University of Chichester. She will present her project on the speed of processing of musical stimuli. Her abstract is below:

'An investigation into participants’ implicit knowledge of tonal relations and harmonic structures found that participants showed an implicit understanding of western harmonic structures, even in the absences of formal musical literacy (Bigand et al.,2001). The phoneme monitoring task is a musical priming paradigm that shows whether the processing of harmonic structures occurs in an automatic way. In this study, we have adapted the phoneme monitoring task to focus on both implicit knowledge of musical structure but also to study implicit memory for specific musical sequences.

'This current study aimed to investigate whether the phoneme monitoring task would identify any differences between musicians and non-musicians. Thirty-two musicians and non-musicians (19 female and 13 male) were asked to listen to a seven-chord sequence and decide as quickly as possible whether the final chord ended on the syllable /di/ or /du/.

'Results showed that musicians were quicker overall but non-musicians showed a bigger improvement in reaction times from the first time of hearing to the second. Implicit memory was evident in both groups, with some improvement in performance being due to implicit learning and some due to practice effects. Group differences in harmonic priming showed that musical training effects the processing of manipulated musical sequences.'

York Music Psychology Group Research to explain and understand musical behaviour and experience. Toggle navigation Projects People YMPG Colloquium Study with us and join YMPG Media Resources Contact YMPG Colloquium The York Music Psychology Group meet on a weekly basis in term time in the Music Depa...

"There is a rich representation of drugs in popular music, and although studies have shown higher levels of drug use in listeners of some genres of music, the relationship is complex" - how are scientists working to understand the link between drugs and music?
Researcher Ian Hamilton has contributed to an article on the subject:

We have one of the most exciting line-ups for this term's colloquia series with many external speakers coming from across the country to present their research! On top of that we have moved time and venue. Sessions will now, mostly, take part on Thursdays between 2 and 4 in the MRC teaching room (Department of Music, University of York).

York Music Psychology Group Research to explain and understand musical behaviour and experience. Toggle navigation Projects People YMPG Colloquium Study with us and join YMPG Media Resources Contact YMPG Colloquium The York Music Psychology Group meet on a weekly basis in term time in the Music Depa...

Latest

Written by YMPG member Diana Kayser: ‘Each year students from all over the world come together to share and discuss their knowledge on varying topics from the field of systematic musicology at the SysMus Conference. The 9th edition of this conference series, organised by students for students, took place in the idyllic town of Jyväskylä … Continued

Dr. Hauke Egermann and members of the YMPG ran two sessions in which participant’s responses’ to four musical excerpts were measured using the Music Department’s audience response system. The research, commissioned by Danish technology company Bang and Olufsen, took place in the University of York Music Department on the 14th of August. The … Continued

European Society for the Cognition of Music conference 31 July 20 17 – 4th August 2017, University of Ghent, It was the great pleasure of members of the YMPG to be welcomed to Ghent for this conference. The planning started around Christmas when members submitted their abstracts to be considered for either spoken or … Continued

YMPG were lucky enough to take part in the 2017 FestIval of ideas, as run by the University of York. One of their flagship events was the ‘family fun afternoon’ held in the Ron Cook Hub. One of our members, Lottie Brook, devised a series of activities for children to introduce them to the idea … Continued

On the 10th of June we are taking part in the Family Fringe Afternoon at the University’s Festival of Ideas! We have an exciting line up of activities planned, suitable for children and parents to get involved in. From a silent disco to composing your own percussive piece, we hope to share some interesting facts … Continued

Recent projects

Musicologists, practitioners, and critics have recognised that contemporary music is often challenging to audiences used to traditional western music structures. However, this music can be enjoyable. We will conduct a pilot study in order to understand why some listeners respond positively and others negatively to this music, identifying the cognitive and emotional processes that facilitate … Continued

The goal of our contribution to the 3DMIN project is to empirically research parameters in the interaction with musical instruments that are crucial both for the performer and the experience of the audience. Especially the relationship between gestures and the sensory feedback of the instrument will be investigated. This parameter called “mapping” is considered substantial … Continued

Music, Science and Technology Research Cluster
Department of Music
University of York
Heslington
York